Data revisions to German national accounts: Are initial releases good nowcasts?

Data revisions to national accounts pose a serious challenge to policy decision making. Well-behaved revisions should be unbiased, small, and unpredictable. This article shows that revisions to German national accounts are biased, large, and predictable. Moreover, with use of filtering techniques designed to process data subject to revisions, the real-time forecasting performance of initial releases can be increased by up to 23%. For total real GDP growth, however, the initial release is an optimal forecast. Yet, given the results for disaggregated variables, the averaging out of biases and inefficiencies at the aggregate GDP level appears to be good luck rather than good forecasting.     

做实基本养老保险个人账户的若干理论问题

做实基本养老保险个人账户,就是要实现个人缴费的完全积累,真正落实社会统筹与个人账户相结合的部分积累制度,它是中央政府的重要决策,具有重要意义。但在什么是做实基本养老保险个人账户、为什么要做实基本养老保险个人账户、如何做实基本养老保险个人账户等方面还存在一些认识上的误区,需要从理论上加以澄清。     

Changing patterns of transfers in Slovenia in the last three decades: transition from a socialist economy to a market economy

Rapid population ageing increases interest in economic flows across ages and intergenerational transfers in general. This article uses the National Transfer Accounts methodology to measure consumption and production at each age, and how the difference between consumption and production is financed through (private and public) transfers and the interaction with assets, i.e. ‘asset-based reallocations’. During working ages, people earn more than they consume and with the surplus they finance the deficit of the young and old generations who consume more than they produce. Such a pattern of economic dependency is universal across countries and across time, but huge differences exist in the ages at which individuals produce more than they consume and vice versa. Moreover, the importance of private and public transfers and asset-based reallocations varies across countries and times. In the last three decades, life expectancy at birth in Slovenia increased by 9.3 years, while the age span in which production exceeds consumption narrowed rather than increased. Child dependents are predominantly financed by private transfers, whereas the elderly mainly rely on public transfers. Young and old individuals increasingly rely on public transfers. Together with rapid population ageing, this is likely to jeopardise the public finance system in the future.     

上海市城镇职工个人账户养老金精算研究

该文以上海市城镇职工为例,对现行城镇基本养老保险中个人账户养老金进行精算分析。研究方法为在建立基本模型的基础上,对相关参数进行赋值,测算个人账户养老金的积累额、月计发额及工资替代率水平,分析不同因素对个人账户养老金月领取标准及个人账户养老金替代率的影响。     

南宁市土地-社会核算矩阵的构建

在经济增长日益受到土地资源供给量和环境承载力的严重制约背景下,将资源、环境问题纳入综合的社会经济分析框架中,全面分析外部冲击或政策变动所造成的影响对如何科学地调控土地资源非常重要.在传统社会核算矩阵的基础上引入土地资源方面的核算账户,基于2005年相关数据构建南宁市土地-社会核算矩阵,对土地利用对社会经济的影响分析中纳入对资源与环境问题的刻划,从宏观角度对土地利用与社会经济影响进行分析,建立了一个具有较强通用性的分析工具,为政府部门采取有效的土地资源调控政策提供决策依据.     

An annual index of Irish industrial production, 1800–1913

We assemble the Irish industrial data currently available for the years 1800–1921, the period during which the entire island was in a political union with Great Britain, and construct an annual index of Irish industrial output for 1800–1913. We also construct a new industrial price index. Irish industrial output grew by an average of 1.3 per cent per annum between 1800 and the outbreak of the First World War. Industrial growth was slightly slower than previously thought, especially during the two decades immediately preceding the Great Famine. While Ireland did not experience absolute deindustrialisation either before the Famine or afterwards, its industrial growth was disappointing when considered in a comparative perspective.     

中小企业应收账款融资信用风险评价研究——以农业中小上市企业为例

以农业中小上市企业为例,构建应收账款融资信用风险评价体系,并通过Logistic模型度量基于违约概率的应收账款融资信用风险.结果表明,农业中小上市企业的盈利能力、成长能力、营运能力及应收账款质量、下游企业资质、供应链运营状况对其应收账款融资信用风险有重要影响,经检验该模型在预测农业中小上市企业应收账款融资信用风险方面的准确性较高,可为银行等金融机构对中小企业应收账款融资信用风险预警提供思路.     

Why Has China's Current Account Balance Converged after the Global Financial Crisis?

China's current account surplus declined significantly from its peak of nearly 10 percent of GDP in 2007 to less than 1 percent in 2018. The new pattern offered fresh evidence for our understanding of China's current account dynamics. In this paper, we used flow of funds data to gauge its underlying driving forces. Specifically, by employing index decomposition analysis, we decomposed the current account from the perspective of savings and investment into three sectors: the household, corporate, and government sectors. We found that the decline in China's current account ratio was first driven by cyclical factors, i.e. weak corporate saving growth induced by the economic slump in 2009 as well as the following massive corporate investment bolstered by the government stimulus plan. However, such cyclical factors quickly subsided, and the subsequent current account balance reduction was later supported by structural factors, i.e. household savings declined enduringly and the Chinese government switched to a more expansionary fiscal policy. There are three possible explanations for the structural movement: reduced precautionary saving due to higher social security coverage ratio, lower corporate profits as a result of economic slowdown, and a twin deficit due to the government's more relaxed fiscal stance. The new facts, however, were not consistent with other current account theories focusing on long‐term aspects of the saving–investment account puzzle, especially those relating to China's special demographic characteristics.     

Counting carbon: historic emissions from fossil fuels,long-run measures of sustainable development and carbon debt

This article examines how to account for the welfare effects of carbon dioxide emissions, using the historical experiences of Britain and the USA from the onset of the industrial revolution to the present. While a single country might isolate itself from the detrimental effects of global warming in the short run, in the long all countries are unable to free ride. Thus, we support the use of a single global price for carbon dioxide emissions. The calculated price should decrease as we move back in time to take into account that carbon dioxide is a stock pollutant, and that one unit added to the present large stock is likely to cause more damage than a unit emitted under the lower concentration levels in the past. We incorporate the annual costs of British and US carbon emissions into genuine savings, and calculate the accumulated costs of their carbon dioxide emissions. Enlarging the scope and calculating the cumulative cost of carbon dioxide from the four largest emitters gives new insights into the question of who is responsible for climate change.     

China＇s Urban and Rural Old Age Security System： Challenges and Options

I. Introduction In the process of economic transition, China has adopted an urban-priority reform approach in establishing its old age security system, which conforms to international development experiences. China’s rapid aging of people with low-incomes, however, is unprecedented compared with other developed or developing countries. The urban-priority reform ensures a relatively high coverage in urban areas, whereas it imposes a heavy burden ofold age support on rural households. Current …